The NCI Agency held a workshop on 6 November to prepare the establishment of the AirC2 Communications and Information (C&I) Partnership. The AirC2 C&I Partnership is expected to be established by mid-2015, and is considered a unique opportunity to address versatile national requirements in the AirC2 domain.
The workshop was organized following a request from Nations for the transfer of the NATO Air Command and Control System (ACCS) Level of Operational Capability 1 (LOC1) support activities from the NATO Support Agency (NSPA) to the NCI Agency and the need to address the related national requirements for in service support.
11 nations, as well as NSPA provided representatives to the workshop who were given the opportunity to analyze and clarify their national requirements and seek mutual understanding on the initial AirC2 C&I Partnership Programme of Work (POW).
Based on the successful workshop outcome and approval by the Nations of the draft implementation plan, the NCI Agency will now tackle development of the draft non-costed POW as well as the Draft AirC2 C&I Partnership Agreement, to be released to the nations by the end of November.
In the spirit of the Smart Defence initiative, Nations are also invited to take up the role of Lead Nation. The expected initial group of participants to the AirC2 C&I Partnership are the ACCS LOC1 Support Partnership Nations and/or the ACCS Validation Nations: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Norway.
The AirC2 C&I Partnership, along with the NATO Software Tools C&I Partnership, will be the first C&I Partnerships established by the NCI Agency, fully leveraging the opportunities created by the NCI Organisation Charter and the Agencies Reform.